Blut Zwischen Den Skalen
by Miyakai Valentine
Summary: A series of grisly murders are sweeping the town of St. Hetalia, leaving Officer Kirkland and Private Investigator Jones to sort out the clues. Will they be able to stop the killer before their loved ones are put in harm's way? MULTI-CHARA DEATH!
1. Chapter 1

**Extended Summary: **Music is the brandy of the damned, and the town of St. Hetalia is about to have more than its fill, as a terrifying sweep of grisly murders strike a discordant note in the hearts of the community. Can Arthur Kirkland, Lieutenant Officer of St. Hetalia Police Department, work with Private Investigator Alfred F. Jones to solve this case before the final curtain call?  
**  
Authors' Note: **This started out as a project between my brother, my girlfriend, and myself. The idea came to us while we were watching The Silence of the Lambs, and it soon blossomed into a whole plot outline with characters and events. After my brother wrote the first chapter, he lost inspiration to continue working on the project and left it in the hands of my girlfriend and I. She re-worked the first chapter, and now edits the chapters as I write them.

I'm so eager to post this that I'm actually posting ahead of schedule. Not all of the chapters are completed yet, but they are plotted out. Updates will depend on my own inspiration to work on chapters, but this hasn't really proved to be an issue thus far. With the first few chapters under our belts, things have started to progress much sooner.

With that, there's not much more to say about this. I hope that all of you enjoy.

**Disclaimer:** Hetalia Axis Powers does not belong to us. We make no profit off of this story, and only write it for the enjoyment of ourselves and other fans.

**Warnings: **This fic will contain MULTIPLE CHARACTER DEATHS, blood and gore, gay and heterosexual couples, mentions of sex (and perhaps even description of sex in later chapters), and fowl language. If any of these elements bother you, please do not continue reading. Thank you.

* * *

"It's been two months already, Clemenz."

The dark haired Austrian man muttered to himself, tugging a pair of dark leather gloves onto his hands. There was no one with Roderich Edelstein in the vast, stately music room, yet he continued to speak, soft and inflectionless, yet in some intangible way quietly pleading, "Why have you abandoned me, my muse?"

Roderich sighed, propping up his glasses with the blade of his palm, before offering a longing gaze to the elegant ebony instrument of his affections. The musician's eyes grazed over the large jet-black grand piano that he hadn't played - much to his dismay - in a little over two months. Playing it or not, he decided, he had to keep it tuned.

He peeled a small round sticker off the back of a flat, square envelope, sliding his hand into the package and gingerly pulling out a circle of bound wire. First using pliers that had been sitting on the floor near him to pry the small metallic band off of the wire, the Austrian set the tool back to the floor and pushed himself up to his feet, hands idly uncoiling the length of piano wire.

For as long as Roderich could remember, music had been his sanctuary. It was his blood, his life, his air, and never in the course of his existence had the Austrian been without a tune in his mind, a rhythm in his hands. That is, until a few months ago. Without warning, his muse had left him, abrupt and without explanation, depriving the Austrian of musical inspiration. The metronome in his mind went off kilter, the reason and rhyme flowing astray in fraying strands of wasted composition. Like a helpless babe, the Austrian had unsuccessfully pawed at his keys, fumbling to create what had been instinctive, and failing.

It was beginning to upset him to extreme levels. So unlike him, he had begun to have outbursts at his wife, as well as the part-time maid. Neither one of the females outwardly expressed any objection to his discontent, but the frustrated composer imagined that it would not be long before the rising tension would prompt him to snap.

As though the thought triggered fate itself, Roderich's attempts to tune the piano were suddenly interrupted, the newly disturbed wire bursting loudly in his hands with an ugly 'twang', provoking him from morbid abstraction. Roderich's face clouded, and it took all his will not to lift something heavy and blunt to his most prized possession. Luckily, he had more wire on hand, but that fact alone did little to stave his anger.

"I've brought you your tea, Mr. Edelstein," the feminine voice caught the brunet Austrian by surprise. His head jerked up, skull connecting with the piano cover and resulting in a loud, painful 'crack.' Letting out a low hiss of exasperation, Roderich took a few hasty steps back, rubbing his head as he turned towards the pale blonde woman who had silently entered the room.

"My apologies, sir. Are you alright?" The monotone voice and bored expression on the young woman's face contrasted with the intended concern, as she placed the tray containing teapot, cup, sugar, cream and spoon on a short table a little ways off.

"Fine. I'm _fine,_" he gritted out, annoyed a bit too easily by the maid's mere presence, let alone her speech. He added more pressure to the bruise forming on his head as he turned away from the large instrument, chagrined that there had been a witness to his private despair. The world should just leave him to be alone with his passion, even if it was currently at a stand still. With this thought in mind, the Austrian walked over to retrieve his cup of tea, murmuring a curt gratitude and implied dismissal.

Instead, Natalia – as the maid was typically addressed by her first name – turned slowly, her eyes following her employer. Her incurious gaze traveled over the Austrian's well-dressed form, over the thick and very prim blue linen of the others' coat and down to his pants tucked into clean-cut boots.

She couldn't understand how this man, whom she had come to know and at times admire as refined, controlled, almost distant, could possibly be so easily affected by a pursuit as trivial – in her mind – as music. It was not that she at all disliked music; merely that she didn't understand the compulsion to obsess over what was, after all, simply the arrangement of different kinds of noise. There were, after all, more important things in life. Food on the table, a well kept home, a loving marriage. All things that Mr. Edelstein appeared to have, in yet, didn't appear to appreciate. It made a cold place in Natalia's heart just a little bit colder, and today, it prompted her to speak.

"Mr. Edelstein," she started, hands firmly clasped together near her lower back.

The male could feel his nerves being grated upon the longer she stayed in the room, but always trying to be civil rather than snapping, Roderich gave her his attention, taking a sip of his tea.

"Yes, Ms. Natalia?" he attempted in what he thought was an appropriate tone. He had a feeling that his irritation had shown through, however, from the way the Eastern European woman's icy blue eyes narrowed at him in what almost seemed to be contempt.

"If you're no longer playing, why even bother to keep it repaired?" she asked bluntly, turning her back on him and facing the piano, coolly assessing the instrument with a hint of a scowl, "Such a meaningless artifact, don't you think? Couldn't you simply hire someone to, perhaps, play for you and your wife? I mean, instead of bothering yourself to play."

The Austrian stared, wondering at first whether the maid was trying to make a sorry attempt at a sort of joke, belatedly realizing she'd yet to make a joke in his presence and coming to the conclusion she was being quite serious. He felt his right bottom eyelid form a tick as his finger clenched around the unused piano wire still in his right hand, indignation rising. The left, however, still held the teacup, which Roderich promptly set down before he ended up throwing it at the young woman.

"I was not my choice to stop playing, Natalia," the Austrian corrected, deliberately mastering his suddenly flinty voice, "I simply ran short of inspiration." Roderich hadn't wanted to admit this, least of all to himself, so his teeth clenched shut tightly. He glared at her for a moment longer before speaking again.

"And no, it is not a 'meaningless artifact', as you say. I find it very useful, and think it's a very expressive instrument, given a competent, and more than capable musician such. as. myself," he gritted his last words out, eyebrow rising of it's own accord.

She hummed tonelessly for a moment, walking from the man and straight towards the object of the conversation. Expression absolutely blank, the blonde forcefully drummed each of her fingers along four random keys. With each loud note, the man halfway across the room could feel his entire being twitch, each inconsiderate slam on the ivory keys, in that improper fashion, grating further and further onto his nerves. Why was she being so rude to his most prized possession?

"I really can't see it," she drawled in an aloof tone, quite unaware of her offense. "This thing is pointless."

That seemed to be the last straw for the older male. His fingers clamped down onto the wire in his hand for a moment, before suddenly pulling a length into his other hand as well, striding towards the girl with abrupt speed, his mouth curled in an alien snarl.

"Stop touching her!" he all but shouted at his lowly paid servant, arms lifting before he could stop them, anger towards her indiscretion driving his actions. He brought his arms back down, wire now in front of the young woman. Before he knew what he was doing, he was pulling on the thin but strong wire, pulling it flush against the others neck.

Natalia didn't have much time to react, barely managing gasp and raise a hand towards her throat before the force behind the instrument wire caused the thin skin of her neck to break. Neither of them noticed, truly, until the wire was slicing through the skin, through the muscle, suddenly stopping on bone due to the untrained hand of the wielder, the wire not quite landing between vertebrae.

The Austrian felt himself exhale in disbelief, blinking, before he relinquished the pressure, pulled the bloodied wire out of the others' throat, and stepped back, every motion exaggerated and slow to Roderich's shocked mind. The fragile frame of the female collapsed to its knees, falling forward onto the hardwood floor of his home's music room.

Her head fell to the side, wide ice-colored eyes traveling up to him, gazing at him with a silent mixture of disbelief, devastation, and desperation. Her mouth gaped weakly, her throat letting out a tiny, helpless gurgle, before the life left those eyes, rolling back into her skull and fluttering closed. Roderich found himself staring down at the corpse mind utterly blank with a sort of numb horror. But, just then, he finally felt what he'd been wanting for the past months. A soft tune buzzed throughout his head; his muse had given him something to play.

"Roderich? What was all that-" the man's wife, the beautiful Elisabeta, stepped into the room, a tray of food in her arms that was to be his dinner. The Hungarian stopped in her tracks, slack fingers releasing their grasp upon the tray and letting everything clatter to the floor.

"Racket? Roderich! What have you done?" she dashed over to him, hands placing themselves on his shoulders to turn him away from the corpse, mouth strained and frantic. Elisabeta took the piano wire from him, tossing it down onto the body before looking back to him, hands trembling on his shoulders as she tried to peer into his abstracted auburn eyes with her own anxious green. "What the hell's wrong with you? Roderich? Talk to me!"

"Parchment," he said quietly, shifting eyes unfocused as his right hand began moving back and forth, conducting a large mental orchestra. "I need parchment."

His wife stared at him for a moment longer, before pulling her hands off of him and rubbing her forehead in quiet exasperation. Once he got a song into his head, he wouldn't stop until it was written down somewhere.

"I put it all into storage last week like you told me to, my love," she sighed, looking at her husband with a small frown. Their storage unit was over two miles away, and there was no way she was going to let him go there at this time of night.

The man seemed unaffected by this as he turned and stared blankly at the corpse, the scales rising and falling in the air beneath his right hand.

"That's fine, Elisabeta. After all, she was my inspiration," a mixture of a smirk and a smile pulled at half of his lips, as he tilted his head, lifting his hand to his wife.

"Fetch me that knife; I have my parchment."

* * *

Notes: The title Blut Zwischen Den Skalen (_Blood Between The Scales_) is a sort of play on words that we came up with. I won't go into detail at the moment, but may explain it at the end of the story for those interested.  
Clemenz - I believe - is the name of a German/Austrian muse, specifically one of music or composing. I could be wrong about this.

**A/N: **There you have it my sweets, the first installment of our morbidly entertaining story. We hope you enjoyed reading, and please drop us a review. It really inspires me to pump out chapters at a faster rate, and also they just bring smiles to our faces. 3


	2. Chapter 2

**Extended Summary: **Music is the brandy of the damned, and the town of St. Hetalia is about to have more than its fill, as a terrifying sweep of grisly murders strike a discordant note in the hearts of the community. Can Arthur Kirkland, Lieutenant Officer of St. Hetalia Police Department, work with Private Investigator Alfred F. Jones to solve this case before the final curtain call?  
**  
Author's Note: **Thanks so much to all of you who added this to your story alerts! :D It's so encouraging to us that so many of you are interested in our little project! That said, this chapter was written by me, and I hope that you all enjoy it. **  
**

**Disclaimer:** Hetalia Axis Powers does not belong to us. We make no profit off of this story, and only write it for the enjoyment of ourselves and other fans.

**Warnings: **This fic will contain MULTIPLE CHARACTER DEATHS, blood and gore, gay and heterosexual couples, mentions of sex (and perhaps even description of sex in later chapters), and fowl language. If any of these elements bother you, please do not continue reading. Thank you.

* * *

The only sounds cutting through the thick silence that was blanketing the Austrian's music room were the soft, squelching slices of a crude kitchen knife moving through flesh. Roderich, perhaps much calmer than he should have been, was finishing up with changing the piano wire he had tried – and failed – to replace earlier that evening. His lovely wife Elisabeta knelt on the hardwood floor beside the body of their part-time maid. The Hungarian woman had long since closed the Belorussian girl's lifeless, staring eyes, before she had begun peeling pieces of flesh from the corpse. Each piece she removed contained a rough staff with notes carved into it. The music, Elisabeta thought, was sure to be beautiful, even if the canvas on which it had been formed was the height of grotesque. The young wife sighed, dropping the thick panel of flesh onto a tray with a sickening slap. Her husband glanced up from tuning the piano and watched her as she inspected the blood coating her fingers.

"What were you _thinking_?" she asked through another sigh, dropping her hands into her lap, mindful not to get any blood on her dress. Roderich let out a sigh of his own, although it was very drawn-out, and stroked his piano lovingly, as if it were a living thing.

"She was putting her dirty hands all over her," he whispered a bit brokenly, stroking the instrument again. Elisabeta gave him a flat look, but carefully stood, wiping her hands off with a rag. She frowned at a spot of dried blood and began scrubbing at it fervently with the cloth in her hands. Roderich, seeing his wife growing frantic, quickly crossed the room and captured her hands in his, ceasing her hysteric cleansing. She gazed up at him through tear-clouded eyes and willed her chin to stop trembling.

"What are we going to do about the body, Roderich?" she asked in a gently quavering tone. He bent and kissed her softly, calming her quivering lips for a moment.

"Don't worry about it, my dear," he crooned softly, pulling her into a waltz and twirling her gently around the quiet room. "We'll think of something."

They danced in the quiet for a few long moments – Elisabeta's breathing calming as they did, her head resting on her husband's shoulder as they stepped about the room, making circles around the body and the pool of blood surrounding it. Roderich's face was the epitome of calm and collected, perhaps even a bit aloof and distanced, and Elisabeta could tell that he was twirling them to the music playing in his head – the same song carved into the skin of the young girl he had just killed.

They split a moment later, the Austrian moving back to his piano to polish the instrument with a loving glow in his eyes, and his wife moving back to the body to begin cleaning up the mess. She took the platter with the sheet of flesh to the freezer, before returning to carefully mop up the lake of blood around the stiffening corpse. She found an old, stained tablecloth to wrap the body in, rolling the cadaver onto the cloth and wrapping it carefully, almost tenderly. After some careful deliberation, the couple moved her to the car, carrying her as if she was merely a piece of covered furniture to be stored in the garage. Elisabeta bent the girl's cocooned legs carefully as they eased her into the trunk, and the Hungarian woman tried to avoid looking at the face of her husband's victim as he closed the hatch.

They drove for miles in the still and silent night, both wondering where to dump the body. With each car that passed, Elisabeta gave a start, letting out a small, frightened whimper. The man driving seemed rather unaffected by it all, and his wife's whimpers grew into small sobs as she became increasingly aware of her own husband's detachment. After some time, the car slowed to a stop in front of an Eastern Orthodox Church. Elisabeta looked at the looming building with a hint of dread in her eyes before glancing to her husband behind the wheel of the vehicle. He removed his driving gloves and replaced them with a dark leather pair.

"Miss Arlovskaya was a member of this church," the musician informed his wife with the same sort of detachment he had been displaying all evening. Elisabeta shivered a bit, feeling somehow that the cold demeanor of the girl was suited to this harsh, impersonal building. It didn't occur to her that her shiver was partly due to the own cold tone of her beloved's voice. Her head turned as her husband began to speak again.

"Coincidentally, she also worked for another couple that lives nearby. It would be best to implicate ourselves as little as possible by implicating someone else," he spoke rather flatly, as if he hadn't just suggested that they should attempt to frame someone else for this innocent girl's murder. Elisabeta nodded in quiet agreement, not quite trusting herself to speak and fairly certain that words weren't required.

Pulling up to the side of the desolate building, Roderich swiftly exited from the car door and walked to the trunk, opening it at the push of a button with a soft click. His wife soon joined him, and together, Roderich and Elisabeta dragged the wrapped body from the trunk and towards the church steps. After propping the body against the door – the woman taking special care to make the girl look as peaceful and at rest as possible – she tied a scarf around the girl's neck, to cover where the piano wire had cut so cleanly through her throat. Elisabeta bowed her head and said a small, quiet prayer for the girl. Allowing this small moment of reverence, the Austrian soon took his wife by the arm and gently guided her back to the car. As they pulled away, Roderich watched the scene get smaller and smaller in his rear-view mirror.

"At least she'll be on time for mass tomorrow morning," he said with a small hint of irony. Elisabeta shot him a disapproving look through tear-filled eyes, but said nothing.

–

Private Detective Alfred Jones sat on the couch of his combined office and living quarters, flipping through the channels on his small TV to find the afternoon news. He stopped as he reached it, thumb hovering over the volume button as he watched a reporter standing before a building, where there was a large commotion of police moving back and forth in behind her.

"Hey, isn't that...the church on 75th Street?" he asked himself softly, before tapping the volume button a few times, listening as the reporter's voice slowly became audible.

"...-found this morning in front of Eastern Orthodox, has been identified as Natalia Arlovskaya, sister to Ivan Braginksy, the warden at St. Hetalia Penitentiary. Mr. Braginsky declined the comment on the matter, but his older sister Yekaterina Braginsky, when questioned by police just earlier today, stated...quote, 'I am not thinking it was anything to do with brother...even as prison warden, everyone is loving my brother.' Yekaterina was raised as a farmhand in the country of Ukraine; her late sister Natalia worked as a maid-service for many of the residences in the St. Hetalia area-"

Alfred switched his TV off as he jumped up from his couch. Scrabbling to get dressed and grab his badge, he began to plan out the questions he would ask the Braginksy siblings and Natalia's former employers.

* * *

Notes: The title Blut Zwischen Den Skalen (_Blood Between The Scales_) is a sort of play on words that we came up with. I won't go into detail at the moment, but may explain it at the end of the story for those interested.

**A/N:** That's it for this chapter! A bit shorter than the first, I believe, but I hope you all enjoyed it. Please leave a review! C: They make our souls happy.


	3. Chapter 3

**Extended Summary: **Music is the brandy of the damned, and the town of St. Hetalia is about to have more than its fill, as a terrifying sweep of grisly murders strike a discordant note in the hearts of the community. Can Arthur Kirkland, Lieutenant Officer of St. Hetalia Police Department, work with Private Investigator Alfred F. Jones to solve this case before the final curtain call?  
**  
Author's Note: **I AM SO SORRY OTL Okay, really, I have an explanation for why this took so long. My laptop got a virus a while ago and I'd been struggling with it to get it fixed or even just temporarily working for a long, long time. Well, after a while, I finally gave up and had to have my lappy wiped completely, which means all of my files and documents got deleted. So that means that this chapter also got deleted, orz. LUCKILY, I have tons of betas plus my co-author/beta, and my co-author/beta finally found this chapter on her computer and sent it on over to me. This is the completed chapter. Once again, I am SO sorry for making everyone wait and not being able to even give you guys an update as to what was going on.

I hope you enjoy this chapter and hopefully the next one will be out a LOT sooner.

**Disclaimer:** Hetalia Axis Powers does not belong to us. We make no profit off of this story, and only write it for the enjoyment of ourselves and other fans.

**Warnings: **This fic will contain MULTIPLE CHARACTER DEATHS, blood and gore, gay and heterosexual couples, mentions of sex (and perhaps even description of sex in later chapters), and fowl language. If any of these elements bother you, please do not continue reading. Thank you.

* * *

"I want ashure."

A few occupants of the briefing room groaned in annoyance, more than one of them also shooting the Turkish man an annoyed glare. The man seated across the room, a brunette with a sleepy expression, rolled his eyes and looked out the window at a stray cat climbing a tree.

"When don't you?" he inquired softly, but the hostile sarcasm wasn't lost on the older man.

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean? Are you saying that I'm fat, you lazy Greek?" the Turk shouted, standing from his seat and taking a fighting stance. Said Greek looked unfazed save for the spark suddenly ignited in his gaze.

"I'm saying you will be if you keep eating that crap," he bit back, voice laced with irritation. The Turk moved to lunge, but stopped short when a smaller figure shifted to block his path.

"Forgive me, Sadiq-san, Heracles-san, but is this really how police officers – protectors of the city – should act? Please calm yourselves," the Japanese man bowed to each of them in turn, and the two Mediterranean men flushed with embarrassment, mumbling apologies under their breath.

Another deeply tanned brunette – sitting at the back of the room – took a bite from a large, red tomato as he observed the scene.

"Lovi, why can't you be more cute like little Kiku? He's always so polite~" the Spaniard drawled, oblivious to the tense Italian glaring next to him. Antonio glanced over when the man didn't say anything, offering up a spacey and oblivious smile.

"Lovi? Your face is all red, like a tomate!" he exclaimed jovially before the Italian stole the dripping fruit from his hand and the Spaniard let out a surprised yelp.

"Shut up, bastard!" he grumbled through a mouthful of tomato, shoving the Spaniard's face away when he leaned to lick a bit of tomato juice from Lovino's chin.

All occupants of the room froze as a gunshot rang out and the lights flickered briefly. Each set of eyes turned to the front of the room as a bit of dust fell from the new hole in the ceiling – one of many already decorating the tiles – the stern-looking blond beneath it holstering his gun with a frown. His partner, another blond with thick eyebrows, pinched the bridge of his nose with closed eyes, said eyebrows twitching with irritation. The sour looking blond crossed his arms and glared around the room, daring any of the occupants to speak out of turn.

"We have a new case, so be quiet while Arthur tells you about it," he barked, tone dark as Arthur opened a case file and quickly began the briefing process.

"Thank you, Vash. As some of you may have heard, a young woman was found this morning outside of the Eastern Orthodox Church on 75th street. Her cut throat was covered with a scarf, and her body wrapped in what appears to be an old sheet or table cloth," Arthur passed out photos of the victim and crime scene as he spoke, not meeting the eyes of any of the other officers as they slowly began to recognize the murdered girl.

"The woman was identified as Natalia Arlovskaya, younger sister of our own Ivan over at the Penitentiary-"

He stopped now to look at the solemn faces of the officers in the room. He scanned the occupants of the room once, then twice, before his mouth set into a firm line.

"Where are Yao, Ludwig, and Feliciano?" he questioned, gaining the rest of the officers' attention. They glanced around among themselves for a moment as if they, themselves, hadn't noticed the absence of their teammates.

"Yao-san went to visit Ivan-san," Kiku explained softly. "I believe he heard about Natalia-san on the news this morning..."

The Japanese man's voice began to waver and he stopped talking. Heracles set a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and Sadiq crossed the room to join them, wrapping his arms around Kiku as the smaller man set down the photos of his friend with shaking hands.

"Please excuse me," he whispered, bowing his head. Arthur nodded, and turned a questioning gaze to the Italian at the back of the room. Lovino looked up from the photos, slightly paler and no longer eating the tomato in his hand, but otherwise appearing unaffected.

"Feliciano heard on the news this morning, too. Knew she worked for some friends of his and dragged that potato bastard along to offer their condolences or something," Lovino answered quickly, and Arthur ran a hand through his hair with a withering sigh.

"Get a hold of them and get them back here," he instructed, finding a seat with a sigh. "They need to hear this. I want the bastard responsible for this behind bars as soon as possible."

–

Days passed, and the investigation seemed to be at a standstill; interrogations had been conducted, as had lab tests. However, neither wielded very substantial results, and by the time the week was out, Arthur and his team barely had the energy necessary to attend Natalia's funeral.

All of them attended, dressed in dark suits and carrying lilies of mourning, none quite sure what to say to Ivan and Yekaterina; the former who stared almost blankly at the flowers atop his sister's coffin, the latter clinging to his brother desperately, making no effort to hold back her sobs and cries of anguish as the priest lead a prayer for the deceased young woman.

At the wake, the siblings greeted guests, Yekaterina with teary eyes and gratitude toward those who attended her sister's funeral. Many offered their condolences, some offered a shoulder to cry on, but the siblings insisted that they would be fine. Ivan especially, stressing that he could take care of his sister, Yekaterina blubbering about how thankful they were to have such great friends, 'and thank you for being so thoughtful.'

Arthur stood in a small corner of the room, watching the siblings in mourning and listening to the patter of rain hit the windows. The rain showers had started just after the funeral procession left the cemetery, and had yet to cease. A few of the members of the police force – Arthur's teammates – had already offered their apologies to the family, but the blonde had yet to approach the pair for many reasons. He hated that he didn't have anything to tell the victims' family about the case, but he had also learned years ago that he really was no good at consoling anyone in mourning.

He spotted a lull in the amount of people approaching the siblings, and Arthur took the chance with a defeated sigh, moving over and gently resting a hand on Yekaterina's arm to gain her attention. The girl jumped and turned wide eyes brimming with tears on him, drawing her brother's attention in the process. Arthur pulled his hand back, cleared his throat awkwardly, and found an interesting stain on the carpet.

"Ivan, Miss Braginsky, I-I...my team and I are terribly sorry for your loss," he began, shuffling his foot against the carpet. He was aware of both pairs of eyes on him, Ivan's slightly scrutinizing, even under the circumstances, and Yekaterina's gazing wearily. He cleared his throat again and pushed onward.

"We're doing everything we can to find the person responsible," he assured, glancing at the young woman, who was watching him with a trembling lower lip.

"Do you have any leads?" Ivan's voice startled them both, causing them each to jump slightly, before Arthur glanced away guiltily, shaking his head.

"N-No, I'm afraid we don't...not yet, anyway," he admitted softly, and Yekaterina wiped at her eyes, the tears beginning to fall. "But I promise you we'll have something soon."

Ivan huffed softly, pulling his sister closer to him.

"I hope for your sake that you do, comrade," he rumbled softly, smoothing his sister's hair as she cried softly into his side. "I will be upset if you find nothing, da?"

Yekaterina pulled away from her brother, lips trembling and tears running down her face, and fixed her sorrowful eyes on Arthur.

"Thank you for your help, Mr. Kirkland," she hiccupped softly between her words, tears still falling freely, even as she reached up one hand to wipe them across her cheek, "W-We greatly appreciate it..."

Arthur nodded, offering her a sympathetic look, and patted her shoulder gently again.

"If there's anything I can do for you – _either_ of you – don't hesitate to let me know," he stressed, glancing between the siblings. Sniffling, Yekaterina slowly locked her arms around the Englishman's neck in a spontaneous, shaky hug. Arthur blinked a bit, blushing slightly at the unexpected gesture.

"_Спасибі_, Mr. Kirkland," she sobbed softly into his shoulder, and he returned the hug with a gentle – albeit awkward – pat on the back. Ivan allowed his sister to hug the lieutenant for a moment before he gently pried her off, nodding once to Arthur before moving off with his sister before they could be intercepted and cried at by any more people.

Arthur watched the pair disappear around the corner, a sigh slipping past his lips that he hadn't been aware he was holding in. An arm bumped his, and he glanced up to see one of his co-workers standing beside him, eyes on the place the siblings had been just moments before.

"It's such a tragedy, aru," the Chinese man mumbled softly, and Arthur – already over the surprise of the man's sudden appearance – nodded. "Poor Ivan is heartbroken."

Arthur almost asked, 'What about Yekaterina?' but quickly forgot his question as he spotted a blond head poking up above the crowd of mourners, apparently looking for someone.

"Yao, who is that?" he found himself frowning deeply, and the shorter man followed his gaze to the bespectacled man whom looked around the room suspiciously before darting into the kitchen, obviously unaware that he had been seen.

"I don't know, aru," Yao shook his head, one eyebrow arched slightly in wonder. "I've never seen him before in my life."

Arthur frowned, mumbling a soft, 'I'll see you back at the office' to Yao before he moved forward toward the kitchen, pushing through the small crowds of people in the room. He reached the door to the kitchen and hovered outside for a moment, ear pressed to the wood - through it were the muffled noises of aggravated conversation, Ivan's voice rising above the other male in the room; there was no denying that the two men were arguing.

The Brit pushed open the door and slid into the room, unnoticed by the two men arguing in the center. Yekaterina, however, did notice him, and quickly bustled to his side, taking his arm and dragging him away from the conflict.

"Mr. Jones is Private Investigator," she explained in a hushed tone, pointing to the blonde that Arthur and Yao had seen sneaking around before. Ivan barked a word in Russian that made Yekaterina wince, and smashed an empty vodka bottle against the counter, raising the sharp edges close to the blond's face. She elaborated, "He and _брат_ do not be getting along very well."

The argument seemed to heat up, Ivan pressing the broken bottle ever closer the Investigator – who had at some point aimed a gun at the Russian's head – and Arthur decided that perhaps it was time to interfere, before he and his team were seeing another body hauled off to the precinct.

"Ivan, _please_," he interjected, and a silence fell over the room as the bottle and gun were pointed at him instead. Suddenly Arthur understood why Yekaterina hadn't tried to interrupt. The Lieutenant took a deep breath and turned his full attention to Ivan, who had lowered the bottle but still looked more than ready to use it.

"Please," Arthur tried again, tone cautious. "Take your sister to get something to drink."

Ivan's eyes narrowed, but he caught the hint. The Russian sent the blond – Jones, Yekaterina had called him – a glare before tossing the remains of his broken bottle into the trash. He circled an arm around his sister and led her out of the kitchen; Arthur waited until the door had shut behind them before turning his attention to the other blond, who had holstered his gun and was busy straightening out his collar, which Arthur assumed Ivan had grabbed at some point during their altercation. The Investigator ran a hand through his hair, fixed his tie, and after a moment of making sure that he seemed to still be in one piece, turned to Arthur with a mild look of surprise.

"Hi," he began eloquently, and Arthur rolled his eyes at the other.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" The Brit scolded, and the man looked slightly taken aback before countering with a small frown.

"Nice to meet you, too. I'm Alfred F. Jones, private investigator and professional hero," Alfred grinned brightly, thumb jabbing into his own chest in indication, as if the police Lieutenant thought he was talking about a _different_ delusional maniac.

"Lovely," Arthur grumbled, eyes rolling again but with more emphasis now. He repeated, "What are you doing here?"

Alfred looked confused at this, as if he hadn't expected the question to be asked.

"I'm investigating this case, obviously," he explained, tone indicating that this should be quite plain and 'what are you, some kind of idiot?'

Arthur's face was slowly turning red, and it was all he could do to keep from tugging his own hair out. He took a deep breath, attempting to calm himself, before speaking again.

"This case belongs to myself and my team of _trained professionals_," he emphasized the last two words, looking pointedly at Alfred and hoping the other caught onto the tone in his voice. He didn't. Arthur sighed and continued, "Unless Ivan or his sister have _hired_ you to work on this case, there is no reason for you to be here."

However, the blonde didn't seem to be listening, for he had pulled a slightly crushed hamburger out of the pocket of his jacket and begun to eat it. Arthur sighed and ran a hand through his hair, mumbling 'stupid git' before he straightened up and opened his mouth to speak again.

Just as Alfred began talking through a mouthful of hamburger, spraying small flecks of food into the air as he did. Arthur took about three steps back and fervently began to brush off his suit jacket, a look of none-too-mild disgust crossing his face. Alfred didn't notice.

"_What_ did you say? Oh, for heaven's sake-" Arthur snatched the remaining burger from Alfred's hand and tossed it aside. The American stared forlornly after it for a moment before swallowing and turning to Arthur.

"I _said_, 'I have information that might be useful to you.' Weren't you listening?" Arthur looked perturbed at this and opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by the loud slurping of Alfred sucking soda of some kind through a straw.

He tore the ginormous fast-food drink from the Investigator's hand and tossed it aside, too. "_What_ information?" Alfred sent the soda drink the same expression he had spared for his hamburger before turning his attention to the grumpy Brit.

"I have a lead."

* * *

Notes: The title Blut Zwischen Den Skalen (_Blood Between The Scales_) is a sort of play on words that we came up with. I won't go into detail at the moment, but may explain it at the end of the story for those interested.

**A/N:** Again, I can't apologize enough for how much I made you guys wait for this, but I also want to thank everyone who faved and subscribed to this story in the mean-time! Aside from that, there was some Ukrainian in this chapter!

Спасибі - _Spasybi_ - Thank you  
брат - _Brat_ - Brother

And there you have it, folks. Review please!


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